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Research

Two thirds of UK firms won’t be GDPR compliant by May 25
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New research says UK companies are massively ill-prepared for this week’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement deadline.

Less than a third (29%) of organisations surveyed by USB drive specialist Apricorn felt confident they would comply, and when questioned further and asked whether there were any areas they might be likely to fail, 81% could think of some area of the new requirements that might cause them to fail when it comes to GDPR compliance.

Fifty per cent of organisations who know that GDPR will apply to them admit that a lack of understanding of the data they collect and process is their number one concern relating to non-compliance.

On top of this, almost four in ten (37%) believe they are most likely to fail because of gaps in employee training, and almost a quarter (23%) say their employees don’t understand the new responsibilities that come with the GDPR.

While one in ten still regard the GDPR as a mere tick box exercise, a substantial proportion do view it as being of some benefit to their organisation – for example 44% agree that the new regulation is a welcome opportunity to overhaul their organisation’s data handling and security processes.

The most commonly taken step so far, for those who say they will be at least somewhat prepared for the GDPR, is to review and update their security policies for mobile working (67%). However, 30% still worry they could fail to comply due to mobile working, and almost a quarter (22%) of respondents are concerned they may fail due to a lack of encryption.

“Data or personally identifiable information (PII) is at the heart of GDPR and mapping and securing it should be every organisation’s number one priority. By now, all employees, from the top down, should have an understanding of the importance of GDPR and the role they play in keeping this data safe,” said Jon Fielding, Managing Director, EMEA Apricorn. “While we know that many organisations have provided some form of employee training, clearly in some cases this hasn’t been effective and organisations should address these gaps urgently.”

Firms still not ready for GDPR with less than 3 weeks to go
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Only 6 in 10 company directors say they are confident their organisation will be ‘fully compliant’ with new data protection laws set to come in later this month, a new survey from the Institute of Directors reveals.

The poll of 700 bosses shows many businesses remain unprepared for the changes with just three weeks to go until GDPR comes into force.

Business leaders’ confidence in their preparations has declined over the past six months as the sheer scale of the regulations has come into view. Many business leaders are also less sure about how the new rules will affect their firms, with around 40% reporting they are not confident or unsure as to how GDPR will impact their company.

In preparing for the reforms, businesses were most likely to turn to external private advisors, business membership organisations, such as the IoD, and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for guidance. The IoD has so far directly assisted over a thousand of its members, providing guidance and template policies.

The new laws predominantly impact how businesses engage with customers and clients. However, directors also report that GDPR compliance is affecting processes in HR and IT, as well as their governance practices.

“GDPR has been a long time coming for businesses, but it is only proving more formidable as the deadline looms and companies drill down into the detail. The regulator has assured small businesses that there will be not be a sudden inquisition once the rules enter into effect, but with such large penalties for non-compliance, firms must assess what they have to do to avoid falling foul of the legislation, and they must do so soon,” said Jamie Kerr, Head of External Affairs at the Institute of Directors.

“While the regulations may be burdensome, the overriding impulse amongst company directors now is simply to follow the rules. However, SMEs, who are facing a whole host of competing priorities and generally cannot rely upon dedicated compliance teams, are still finding it difficult to digest the sheer scale of the legal changes.

“The Government’s immediate priority should be to ensure the ICO has the resources it needs to make a big final push to assist small businesses in the run up to this month’s deadline”.

Want consumer trust? Ditch the .tv, .biz, .io and .mobi domain names…
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A new YouGov survey has revealed that the .gov.uk suffix creates the greatest trust amongst the British public.

And while only Government institutions are able to use that particular domain style, the findings make for interesting reading elsewhere.

The YouGov Omnibus asked the British public how far they trusted 12 common website domains. The results reveal that the majority of Brits tend to trust websites that end in .gov.uk (80%), .co.uk (68%), .org.uk (65%), and .com (60%).

By contrast, very few trust websites ending in .tv (10%), .biz (4%), .io (4%) and .mobi (2%). In fact, between 32% and 44% of Brits actively distrust websites with these domains. There are more than three million websites using one of these domain names, and the results suggest they could all be in danger of putting off potential visitors.

Surprisingly, only 42% of Brits trust .ac.uk websites, which are primarily used by British universities. However this is likely due to a lack of familiarity, with only 58% of people saying they’ve ever come across such an .ac.uk website, compared to the more than 90% who have ever visited each of the more trusted domains.

Indeed, .ac.uk websites are much more trusted than .net websites (32%), even though people are more likely to found themselves on a .net website at some point (81%).

GDPR

Average spend on GDPR compliance ‘tops $1.5 million per global organisation’
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An EfficientIP X-Day study says average spend on GDPR compliance tops $1.5 million per global organisation, with less than 100 days to go before the deadline for EU GDPR compliance on 25th May this year.

EfficientIP, through independent market research firm Coleman Parkes, asked over 1,000 companies worldwide about their preparation plans for GDPR. Among the key findings were:

  • Over two-thirds of global businesses at 72% are confident they will have all required GDPR compliance processes in place by 25th May 2018.
  • North America is the most confident region in world, with American and Canadian organisations saying they will be prepared at 84% and 75% respectively.
  • Despite the on-going Brexit negotiations and uncertainty looming over the enforcement and effectiveness of the EU GDPR regulation on local businesses, the UK is the most confident nation in Europe, with 74% saying they will be ready by deadline day.
  • In comparison, Spanish businesses are a close second to the UK at 73%, dropping to 66% of French respondents. German organisations are the least confident in Europe at 61%.

Businesses worldwide believe there will be a variety of benefits they will gain from being GDPR compliant. Nearly half of all organisations surveyed, at 46%, say the most important benefit from being GDPR compliant is gaining customer trust to handle sensitive data.

31% of businesses believe the most important value from compliance is enhanced brand awareness. 18% of respondents felt GDPR compliance will increase customer loyalty is the most important benefit.

APAC, North America and Europe businesses believe the biggest positive impact from compliance is increased trust in handling customer data at 53%, 46% and 41% respectively.

European organisations lead the study in saying increased customer loyalty is the biggest impact at 22%, with North America and APAC following respectively at 15%, 14%.

On average, global organisations have so far spent $1,583,000 (£1,145,000) on GDPR compliance. Globally, European businesses have spent the most on average on compliance with Germany leading at $1,969,000 (£1,424,000), followed by the UK with $1,798,000 (£1,300,000), with France completing the top three at $1,781,000 (£1,288,000).

USA and Singapore tops regional spending in North America and APAC, investing $1,568,000 (£1,134,000) and $1,521,000 (£1,100,000) respectively on average. Small and Medium Business have spent on average $1,263,000 (£893,000) so far on compliance, whereas large businesses have spent up to $5 (£3.5) million on compliance.

A key element in EU GDPR is for businesses to provide adequate data protection. In response to this regulatory requirement, 38% of global organisations are convinced that better monitoring and analysis of DNS traffic is the best option to provide data protection in their networks, whilst 35% think securing network endpoints is best and only 21% choose to add more firewalls.

EfficientIP says this shows organisations are finally realising, after the various successful data breaches over the last year, that firewall technology is no longer adequate.

APAC, North America and European organisations are confident in DNS monitoring and analysis technology at 40%, 37% and 36% respectively.

Commenting on the study figures, Herve Dhelin, SVP Strategy at EfficientIP, said: “As organisations enter the final straight of GDPR compliance with 100 days to go, our research shows they have never been so close to regulatory compliance. There is still some work to do, but it is encouraging to see nearly three-quarters of businesses are ready and most organisations see monitoring and analysis of DNS traffic, not firewalls nor endpoints, is the best way of preventing data breaches.”

20% of brands to abandon mobile apps as Virtual Customer Assistants come to the fore
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Twenty-five percent of customer service and support operations will integrate virtual customer assistant (VCA) or chatbot technology across engagement channels by 2020, up from less than two percent in 2017, according to Gartner.

Speaking at of the Gartner Customer Experience Summit in Tokyo, Gene Alvarez, the company’s managing vice president, said more than half of organisations have already invested in VCAs, as they realise the advantages of automated self-service, together with the ability to escalate to a human agent in complex situations.

“As more customers engage on digital channels, VCAs are being implemented for handling customer requests on websites, mobile apps, consumer messaging apps and social networks,” Alvarez said. “This is underpinned by improvements in natural-language processing, machine learning and intent-matching capabilities.”

Gartner says organisations report a reduction of up to 70 per cent in call, chat and/or email inquiries after implementing a VCA. They also report increased customer satisfaction and a 33 per cent saving per voice engagement.

This follows a 2017 Gartner survey that found that 84 per cent of organisations expected to increase investments in customer experience (CX) technology in the year ahead. Other Gartner predictions include:

  • By 2019, 20 percent of brands will abandon their mobile apps.
  • By 2022, two-thirds of all customer experience projects will make use of IT, up from 50 percent in 2017.
  • By 2020, 30 percent of all B2B companies will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to augment at least one of their primary sales processes.
  • By 2020, more than 40 percent of all data analytics projects will relate to an aspect of customer experience.
  • By 2020, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality immersive solutions will be evaluated and adopted in 20 percent of large enterprises as part of their digital transformation strategy.

UK advertising spend to hit £22.1bn for 2017
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UK advertising spend in Q3 2017 rose 3.5% year-on-year to reach £5.4bn – the 17th consecutive quarter of market growth.

According to the latest Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report, the data underpins preliminary figures which show 2017 spending grew to £22.1bn – representing the eighth consecutive year of market growth.

Further findings indicate that total UK adspend over the first nine months of 2017 was 3.5% (£551m) higher than the previous year. The preliminary estimate for 2017 growth is 3.4% (to £22.1bn), an upgrade of 0.3 points since October’s forecast.

The projection for total market growth in 2018 is 2.8% (to £22.7bn).

Advertising Association Stephen Woodford said: “As we work through Brexit, we need to help Government make the best decisions to support our industry and, by extension, the wider UK economy as we target growth across the nations and regions and in an increasingly global marketplace.”

www.adassoc.org.uk

digital marketing

UK digital ad spend up 17% in 2016, says PwC
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A joint report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found that investments in the digital advertising space are rising, driven by advertisers’ need to tap into the rising trend of mobile video.

Nearly half of all UK internet time is now spent on smartphones, with digital ad spend expected to have increased by 17% in 2016 to reach over £10 billion, marking the fastest growth rate within the industry for nine years.

The £10 billion threshold has never been crossed before.

Spend on mobile campaigns rose by more than 50% to reach over £3.9 billion, with overall mobile investment now accounting for 38%of all digital ad spend throughout Britain.

Spend on mobile video ads doubled to £693 million by the end of 2016.

“The rise in people consuming mobile and video content has accelerated digital’s growth rate to its highest level for nearly a decade,” said IAB’s UK chief marketing officer, James Chandler.

He added that reaching the £10bn threshold had been made possible by “brands breaking the mould, trying innovative formats and making the most of video to reach and amaze people.”

Discussing the ongoing debate regarding the transparency and brand safety of platforms such as YouTube, which according to Google gets  more than half of its views from mobile devices, Chandler added: “It’s impossible to ignore the issues the industry is facing at the moment, but digital never stands still.”

However, Sir Martin Sorrell, head of market-leading communications service group WPP said mobile was an “untapped” multi-billion dollar opportunity, which suffered through inadequate technology, causing advertisers to hold back on spending.

During an interview at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Sorrell said: “People are spending about a quarter of their time on mobile, and yet it only accounts for around 12% of spending – That’s out of kilter and it has to change.

“Technology, bandwidth, the devices, the screens are not big enough, not good enough yet,” he added. “There’s a lot of technological development to come.”

Forum Insight: Top tips for social media success while attending B2B events
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Whether you’re going to a big industry expo, specialist conference or attending one of our Forums or Summits, social media can help you get the most out of the event.

So we’ve pulled together five top tips to get you going…

  1. Get yourself up to date

Whether you’re an attending as a delegate or a supplier, make sure your personal and company social media profiles are up to date.

That’s everything from the logo and description to posting a few things to the account (whether that’s Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn) to make sure it looks active.

Don’t forget, a lot of the people you meet at the event will do some research on you and your company by way of a follow up ­­– you want to ensure they have a great first impression when they stumble across your social media on Google.

If you don’t have a social presence, you really, really, should. It takes no time at all to get the basics set up on Twitter or Facebook and there are plenty of ‘how to’ guides out there if you need some help with brand pages and the like.

  1. Do some research

So your social media accounts are up to date and ready to go, now you need to find out where the conversation’s going to be happening.

Twitter is will be where you’ll see most activity during a live event, so spend a little time before you get there doing some research – find out what the event Twitter handle is (follow it if you haven’t already) and what the official hashtag will be.

Also, make sure follow a few industry media outlets ­– this will help you keep track of what’s happening at the event while you’re ensconced in meetings all day.

  1. Start the pre-event hype

During the lead up to the event let everyone know you’re going – @mention the official account and use the hashtag. Let the world know you’re super-excited, particularly if you’re exhibiting or speaking – tell them what you’re going to being talking about or the products you’re going to be showing off. You can do this across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Also, think about using a company or campaign hashtag if you’re going to be doing special promotions during the event.

If you are promoting specific products or services, create a landing page on your website with data capture, just for the event in question – you can then push people there via social media so they can request more info.

  1. On the day…

The first thing to do is to check yourself in virtually across your social accounts – you’re in the building and you’re ready for business.

Now, if you have a busy event itinerary you’re not necessary going to have time to live tweet the entire thing. If that’s the case, say it with pictures – busy stand? Take a picture. See a great product on display? Take a picture. Sitting in an interesting conference session? Take a picture. It’s a quick and engaging way of getting your message across.

And if you spot something compelling, post a video.

You can also schedule posts in advance using tools such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. This is particularly useful if you’re trying to drive stand traffic or promoting products – and don’t forget to push people back to that website landing page.

Keep an eye on those industry news feeds – retweet or pass comment on any big announcements and get involved in the conversation.

  1. After the event

This is when you can have some fun. If you have a company blog, write up your experiences of the event. You don’t have to write an essay – 350-500 words would be sufficient – and then push that article out across your Twitter, Facebook and Linked in accounts.

Perhaps the most important post-event task is to follow up on all those delicious new leads and contacts you made – make sure you follow and like their social media accounts, both personal and company.

Finally, it’s worth searching the event hashtag and scrolling back through its timeline to catch up on the show news and, perhaps more importantly, see what your industry peers were up to…

Survey demonstrates the qualities of high-performing marketers…
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Autopilot has revealed that high-performing marketers are surpassing their peers when it comes to customer journey marketing, with some generating revenue growth by as much as 122 per cent.

Consisting of 505 marketer responses, the email marketing firm’s ‘2016 State of Customer Journey Marketing‘ report found high-performing marketers generate revenue 58 per cent faster than their colleagues; acquire 23 per cent more leads; are twice as happy with their performance; and win a higher number of customers.

Brand awareness was pinpointed as a ‘main measure of marketing success’ (29 per cent), closely followed by customer satisfaction (22 per cent), and, for B2B marketers in particular, 43 per cent claim investing in brand assets is a ‘top priority’.

The report states: “All marketers are prioritising brand awareness, converting leads to sales and generating new leads. But high performers are investing in customer events and marketing, referral and satisfaction programs, and analytics and attribution, rather than in online ads, to get there.”

High-performers affirm the top three investment areas are: customer events and marketing (35 per cent), loyalty referral programmes (29 per cent) and analytics and attribution (19 per cent).

  

Download Autopilot’s research here  

Mass reach and budget ‘matters now more than ever’…
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New research findings presented by Les Binet and Peter Field of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) at an ‘Effectiveness Week’ event on October 31 has refuted the misconception that, with the rise of owned and earned online media, marketers are beginning to question the need to spend money on paid media and mass reach.

Providing analysis of the IPA Databank and drawing on IPA TouchPoints data, the findings constitute the first part of a full report to be published in 2018, indicating that penetration is still three times more likely to be the main driver of growth and profit vs loyalty. As such, brands must focus on widening their customer base for which a broad reach of owned and earned communications – particularly paid media –  and subsequent budget, are crucial.

Research also found that brands utilising paid media will typically expand three times quicker than those relying solely on owned and earned media alone. Nonetheless, adding owned media to the equation can increase the effectiveness of a paid campaign by 13 per cent, and earned media by 26 per cent.

Furthermore, adding television increases effectiveness by 40 per cent, making it the most effective platform and it is also the best for generating top-line growth that drives profit, with a 2.6 per cent average market share point gained per year when using television advertising.

IPA director of Marketing Strategy, Janet Hull OBE said: “Here lies the proof that the digital transformation has helped make mass media work even harder. It also proves that while it is good to have earned and owned media, for top-line growth brands must invest in paid-for, mass reach.”

IPA claims the one reason why television advertising effectiveness has increased is due to video on demand and online video working in synergy with live television. The research shows a 54 per cent increase in the average number of very large business effects from adding television and online video together; versus 32 per cent for just television and 25 per cent just for online video.

The latest findings are a follow up to previous reports published by Binet and Field – Marketing in the Era of Accountability (2007) and The Long and the Short of it (2011) – confirming analysis portrayed in the 2011 study that the most profitable campaigns have a 60:40 ratio of long-term brand-building media (broad reach, highly emotive) and short-terms sales activation (tightly targeted and information rich).